


arms to shoulder (steady 'cross the border)

by Sour_Idealist



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Cross-Sessions, Family, Gen, Post-Scratch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-12
Updated: 2011-12-12
Packaged: 2017-10-27 06:30:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/292653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sour_Idealist/pseuds/Sour_Idealist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You're sort of his father. You're sort of your son. He's definitely not your brother - or at least, you don't think so.</p>
            </blockquote>





	arms to shoulder (steady 'cross the border)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Untitled fanart](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/5757) by bananasandguavas (tumblr). 



> Title from "Sons and Daughters" by the Decemberists. Written before the Act 6 intermission, and thus may not be fully compliant, depending on how certain things play out for characters other than John and Jade.

He's not what you expected, when Jade explained all this to you. He smiles too goddamned much, for one thing - moves too much, too, swinging his heels over the edge of the building, always doing something with his hands, glancing between you and the sun-soaked rooftops minute by minute. (It's not even close to the same view - hell of a lot nicer.)

He sits kind of the same way, though, dangling halfway over the edge; you watch him watch the streets and ramble and wonder if this is _really_ what your Bro was like, once, back before you got dropped on him. Maybe not. Alternate universes, all that shit.

The sun burns through the hairs on the backs of your hands the same way it did back home, anyway, making the little tendrils glow; it's the same on his hands, his arms, when you look. You always used to like that, used to leave your hand next to his big tough callused one on your old roof and imagine them matching, trying to convince yourself each day you were getting closer.

"We ever talk like this before?" you ask, softly, when he goes quiet. "You and the other me, I mean. Your brother, or whatever."

"Occasionally," he says, shrugging - it's different, weird, and you don't know why. "When you were home while the sun was up. He, I should say." He cracks his knuckles, chuckles a little, which is freaky as hell, especially since it looks forced but he sounds exactly the fucking same. "I'm half-waiting for you to inform me I'm sitting like a dumbass with a death wish."

"I said that shit?" You look at him again, tilt your head - well, maybe, a little bit, half of him hanging out over the edge again. "Didn't even think about it. You trying to say I turned into a tightass?"

"Hideously," he says, feet swinging over the gap, and it _is_ a long way down. You tug your own feet up. "Well, variably so. Strict opinions about sitting habits and schooling and shit. Remarkably chill about pulling out half the wiring in one of the guest bedrooms for experimental purposes."

 _One_ of the guest bedrooms. What in the fuck. "You gotta be kidding me," you say, and he laughs.

"Hey, I was nine. But yeah." He's still smiling, less ferocious than you're used to, lacing his fingers together and shoving them out for no reason at all that you can see. "It was remarkably productive, I gotta say."

You snicker, wondering if he used that argument on the other you, wondering if your actual Bro would ever have pulled a stunt like that, would have let you get away with it. Maybe, without shit like safety deposits and repair bills to worry about, but it's hard to imagine. You have to squint at that fucking billboard again, bizarre and huge at the corner of your eye; you shake your head.

"What you expected?" he asks, looking past you. "Or did you have other plans?"

For a moment you can't speak, have to shrug and watch the crows. "Yeah, I always planned on being a world-famous ironic millionaire," you say at last. "Wrote it on all the papers at the career fairs and everything. Figured it was a sure thing."

"What did you expect, then?"

You shrug again, look away. Open your mouth, close it, sigh. "How old am I, anyway?" you ask; he frowns, shakes off whatever thought, a familiar flicker of his eyebrows writ large across his face. Larger, anyway. "The other me, I mean."

"No, I figured." He shrugs. "You're remarkably elusive about it. I tried digging up your birth certificate once or twice, but that worked out about as well as expected considering our origins." Flick, clang, another pebble falling to the fire escape below and bouncing off. He watches it drop. "I never mentioned that, now that I think about it."

"Wouldn't have given a fuck about it."

He smiles, fingers going steady on the roof’s stone edge, and you blink. Jesus _Christ_. He doesn't say anything, and you clear your throat, look at the roofs. "Where else did you two live? Anyplace you can see from here?"

He frowns at you. "We've always lived here, dude. You used to complain that all the extra space lost some of the irony with a kid in it."

"Ironic complaining, I bet," you say, swallowing. Yeah, definitely irony, why are you even asking? "How old was I when you dropped on me, then? Ballpark, I heard you the first time."

"Pretty young," he says, tilts his head back; the sun washes his face orange, and it makes you flinch and think of ghostly feathers for a second. "Recently out of school, I know that. Twenty-three at the lowest, twenty-seven at a highest, either extreme would be a bit of a surprise."

You whistle. "Lucky."

"What, how old was I?"

You open your mouth to answer, have to clear your throat. "Eighteen."

" _Jesus fuck."_

"And three days."

He exhales; you think you see him shivering, but maybe not. "Well, goddamn. Don't tell me I told you that shit."

"No. But I can do math, dude." You shrug. "It worked out okay, I guess. Talked me into condoms pretty quick, though."

"I would think." He sighs, shakes his head, fingers drumming on the roof – steady pattern, not a beat you recognize, doesn’t sound like common time. You think of something.

"How old are you now, anyway?"

He takes so long to answer that you've just about decided he's being a dick about it when he says "Sixteen."

Oh.

The quiet drumming falters, stops; he settles his hands on his knees, fingers digging into his palms, and you look at his face and about eight thousand fucking things you'd rather not think about all slam into place at once: plastic-window envelopes in the mail and phone calls and your Bro, your real Bro, in the kitchen at four in the morning waking you up by searching through the cabinets with sweat soaking through the seam of his pajama pants and blankness in his eyes, and the way the Bro next to you is swallowing, again and again, Adam's apple bobbing up and down like it's on a spring.

You clear your throat. Your hand twitches up towards his shoulder, and you stop, clear your throat again, wish you were better at the whole freezing-time thing that apparently came with the fancy red hood. _hey rose got a question any of your freaky-ass psychology books cover what to say to your son slash father slash brother when both of you are kind of losing your shit on an alternate universe rooftop, freud cover any of that._ Somehow you doubt it.

"Don't think there'll be any other Striders falling out of the sky," you offer at last, picking at the seam on your jeans. "You can only grow so much swag in a vat."

He nods gravely, folds his fingers together. "Indeed. It would require Lalonde's expert guidance, at the very least."

You tuck that away, shrug, look at him and back across the roof, back to the stairs down. Laugh a little. "Hey, you ever have trouble with those stairs?" Between the Nic Cage bullshit and the billboard...

He chuckles, looks at you, tilts his head and slowly he goes still. Considering. The back of your neck starts to prickle, and you slide your glasses down your nose and consider him right the hell back. The seconds stretch on, and the corner of his mouth twitches. He breaks the staring match, coughs.

"You really are him. Sort of." His voice is rough, pained, and he clenches his fists on his knees again, fabric bunching up around his fingers.

You do touch his shoulder, this time, conscious of every inch you have to reach up. There's a zit on his neck, five o'clock shadow catching the sunlight too, and you don't say anything because you don't want to hear how goddamn high your voice still is. You just leave your hand there, try to imitate the slow steady light beat of his – the other him’s – thumb against you when he was trying to lull you back to sleep.

He looks up, closes his eyes - you can see through the glasses, must not be quite the same ones as before. His hand settles on your back, and he pulls you in, his chin bumping against your shoulder and he grunts as your elbow knocks against his ribs. You have to squirm a bit to stop your arm getting crushed between you, wrap it clumsily around him once you’ve got it free. He twitches, and then the two of you are still. You can feel him breathing, and he smells like sweat and the exact same brand of aftershave and different laundry detergent, and he's warm.

Neither of you were ever exactly the hugging type, so it's not like it feels familiar, but you still aren't letting go any time soon.


End file.
